


Small Tragedies

by thedamnstars



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Character Study, Drabbles, I just really love Neil okay?, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:25:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedamnstars/pseuds/thedamnstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short drabbles and one-shots that I write whenever I have the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Todd on Charlie

**Author's Note:**

> So I do this thing where I watch movies religiously for weeks at a time without stopping, and this week I've been watching the Dead Poets Society about everyday. So the characters basically haunt me and I'll never get over Neil's death.  
> Also, Todd is really in love with Neil and it's kind of obvious.

Charlie had an artist’s soul about him, and it scared Todd sometimes how he could express himself so easily -- how he could walk into a room and command its attention. Even if he’d said something inappropriate or crude (as he usually did) there was a sad truth to it; an anger bubbling just below the skin, always one degree below boiling and ready to topple over.

Neil, too, scared Todd. Neil was a leader. He could speak and when he did, it meant something. Everytime Todd spoke to him it was like Neil really _cared_ , really _listened_ , really _saw_ the things which Todd always had trouble expressing with words. The ideas were there, but so far buried within himself that Todd just didn’t know how to get them out, and all attempts proved fruitless. He could sit for hours -- something he did now with more frequency since enrolling in Keating’s class -- trying to put on paper what he felt in his heart, but he couldn’t. The words physically wouldn’t come. Like, they were all there, but so abstract and unfinished that Todd just wanted to lock them away and not show anyone until they were ready. Which they would probably never be. Many people took this for disinterest on Todd’s part, but in fact, it was the opposite.

This was why Neil was such an enigma to him. Because he felt _so much_ , all the time. Felt _so strongly_ about everything, and when he spoke so passionately, Todd had to hope that there wasn’t any physical evidence of his almost swooning at his roommate’s feet.

Charlie was the same, in the way he was so passionate about his ideals. He didn’t go on the same political tirades as Neil though. When Charlie felt something, he would show it in his face. His eyes were his strongest asset, his greatest weapon. They bore through you, right to the soul. And when his lip would quirk up slightly in that way it had, flirting and unrelenting, it was just confirmation that Charlie did in fact, know everything about you. All the things Todd hoped to lock away in the recesses of his mind seemed to be fair game. And what he couldn’t find, Charlie would weasel out of you.

Todd found himself saying some very stupid things in Charlie’s presence (not so much in Nuwanda’s though, who Todd found to be much less abrasive and haughty than his counterpart), which was very embarrassing because he didn’t usually say much of anything.

During study hall one evening in January, Charlie and Todd were left alone at the table because the other boys had gone searching for a book on Humanities, when Charlie leaned over and whispered in Todd’s ear.

“How many people do you think have fucked in the stacks?”

It was raunchy and uncomfortable, and a hot shiver ran up Todd’s spine. Not only because this was a boy’s school, but because Charlie was probably right. At least one couple had probably fucked in the stacks at some point during Hellton’s 200 years.

Charlie always did that. He made Todd think.

“Too many to count on one hand,” Todd wished he’d said. But in the moment he’d only turned his head so fast that Charlie’s face was still in the crook of his shoulder and made a strange spluttering noise. Like a virgin, defiled (which Todd was, but no need to get into that).

Charlie just laughed and went back to the trig Meeks had been helping him with.


	2. Todd on Neil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three stages of Todd's developing affection for Neil

Todd was in love with Neil.

He found it very distracting and hoped it wasn’t too obviously written across his face. The mere possibility of Neil finding out (or anyone finding out, really) sent him into a state of distress.

Todd was certain of his sexuality. Being homosexual was like anything else in his life that he desired but couldn’t have -- he ignored it until it went away or he forgot about it. He was resigned to finish at Welton, go to college where he would meet a beautiful, respectable, virginal girl, settle down with her and have three children.

It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was what would happen. Because it was expected, and Todd always did what was expected of him.

So loving Neil, though it occasionally found itself to make Todd a bit happier each second he spent looking into those wonderful doe-like eyes, proved to be overwhelmingly taxing on him as a whole.

He couldn’t focus. His mind scattered. And whenever he sat to write a piece for English, or finally get started on the poem he’d promised himself to write for the Society, any topic he hoped to draw up would somehow diverge and circle back to the piercing eyes he’d tried so hard to delete from his memory.

\---

Todd’s love for Neil didn’t seem entirely unrequited.

But it was probably just his imagination.

But then again. Sometimes Neil got this look in his eyes like the only thing he ever wanted -- more than acting, more than freedom from his father -- was to make Todd happy.

Neil denying Todd’s reluctance to stay in the Dead Poets Society sent a heat to his gut that ran through him like a herd of buffalo, wild and chaotic. One simple word, “ _No_.”  had short-circuited Todd’s ability to function. One quirk of Neil’s full lips and Todd was down for the count, finished, surrendering to himself.

Todd didn’t think that Neil was entirely heterosexual, either. He never joined in when the others talked about women, about their curves or breasts; what it would feel like to hold, touch, caress.

Todd never joined in either, but then again, that was nothing new. He just sat and laughed at the other members literally salivating over the center-fold that Charlie had pulled out of his pocket.

Neil however, had been stone-faced. He hadn’t reacted at all to the sleazy picture of those pert breasts. If anything, Todd thought he’d looked a little pale.

\---

Todd was beginning to think that Neil and Charlie were sleeping together. Perhaps not necessarily that they were seriously seeing each other, but they had complementary personalities and were both probably tantalizing lovers under the sheets.

Charlie was very free with his sexuality, but never mentioned liking boys. However many artists, Todd knew, were that way. So extroverted and free with their bodies that they would fall into bed with anyone willing to experiment, to learn about the planes of their being, and of the euphoria that is human ecstasy.

It hurt to think about. Mostly because how much Todd knew he wouldn’t do anything about it. They were great together, so why ruin a good thing?


	3. As you wail and cry and scream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Todd's character, and can identify with him on a really personal level which allows me to write his personality pretty in-depth.   
> This chapter doesn't include any of the other boys, but it's a pretty heavy character study if you're into that kind of thing.

One of the problems Todd had with public speaking (other than the actual _speaking_ portion of public speaking) was that none of his ideas were entirely his own. He could vehemently agree with any number of scholars on their own theories, know in his heart so fervidly that his opinions matched what he was reading. But that was it, he _matched_.

He couldn’t articulate his own theories, create new words with which to explain the greatness of his own ideals. He could only parrot, and badly at that. They would be a smattering of words, ineptly cobbled together, stutterings of the passages he’d memorized. He’d decided long ago that being nothing was far better than being wrong.

Mr. Keating liked to drill into the boys his concepts of individuality through speaking your mind: taking what was in your heart and sharing it with the world. Not caring if you were ridiculed for being different, but being in love with the fact that you _were different_.

This made Todd nervous. He decided he was too dependent on the philosophizings of  Whitman and Thoreau, and needed to be more introspective with his thoughts, more conceptual with his work in class. 

Easier said than done. 

It was one thing to say you would live deliberately, but _quite_ another to actually do so. Todd's parents had taught him at a young age to dismiss all that wasn't material, to forget what wasn't societal gain. This numbed him, and he didn't feel like he would ever be able to know what was inside of himself.

After coming to Welton and meeting the boys, Todd had tried to forget his parent's lessons. They were vapid, carnal people who never thought about anything other than what the neighbors thought of _them_. Living at his family’s home during the summer was terrible, even worse than actually being at school. They suffocated him: his father herding him towards Ivy Leagues, his mother chirping incessantly about girls, and Jeffrey’s shadow looming over his head like a perpetual nag.

When he was away at school, Todd liked the imagine that his family didn’t exist. That at the end of term, his mother and father wouldn’t pull up in their expensive car and take him back to their big, impersonal house. They wouldn’t exist for a few days, a few weeks, however long he managed not to think about them. But the truth always crawled back to him, solid and real and terrible.

But he’d finally said those words: _Truth like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold._ Those nights that he laid there in his bed staring up at the ceiling, Neil breathing beside him, and he would remember that this would have to end. That at the end of term he’d have to leave Neil, and leave the boys and Mr. Keating. A chill ran through him. He pulled the blanket up farther, trying to get warm, but it didn’t help. The faces of his parents were still here, cold blue eyes staring at him in the dark.

_You kick at it, beat it, it’ll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it’ll just cover your face, as you wail and cry and scream._


	4. Tighter

The words had come from deep inside of him, from his soul. From the farthest recesses of himself, they’d come and conquered. _From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it’ll just cover your face, as you wail and cry and scream._

And everyone was silenced by it. It was like they’d all been slapped, like Todd himself was slapped as he stood there, shocked that those amazing words had ever come from himself. But then, the smattering of clapping, and finally a raucous of applause.

But Neil had smiled at him.

Not _near_ him or at him, but _because_ of him, like he was proud. And it made Todd cocky, like he could do anything.

Keating had them playing soccer again on that wet field the next day and Todd actually participated. Not the lingering, wading jog he’d would usually do, but he pushed, shoved, exploded with energy. Like the words that flowed from his wrist, flicking against the page with that goddamn ball-point pen his father had given him last Christmas.

But it didn’t matter what fucking pen he used, or in which dimly lit corner he secluded himself into on a moment’s notice to write in privacy when inspiration struck, it was that the words came at all. For so long he’d lived without them, in silence, an endless stream of emotion with no outlet to pour them into. But now they flowed through him, with him.

When they’d gotten back to their room the afternoon Todd had delivered his poem in class, Neil took him by the shoulders and said, “You’re amazing.”

Todd started and heard himself splutter, “What?”

“What you did in class, it was amazing. It was like everything you said was exactly what I’ve been feeling for the past seventeen years of my life. And the language -- the words, it was beautiful, Todd.”

Neil was a tactile creature, always touching, always grabbing at Todd and tackling him into all encompassing hugs that threw them both off balance. His arms came around him suddenly, latching onto Todd’s waist and rocking him slightly, in a way that only pulled them closer. Hidden in the bend of Neil’s shoulder, clinging to his arms to keep balance, Todd wasn’t afraid to smile. It was blissful, and unabashed, and completely, utterly incandescent.

 


End file.
